Guillermo del Toro's PINOCCHIO Casts Christoph Waltz, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, and More

Director Guillermo del Toro has brought together an impressive all-star cast for his upcoming stop-motion animated musical movie Pinocchio, which is coming to Netflix. Del Toro is directing the film with Mark Gustafson (Fantastic Mr. Fox).

Newcomer Gregory Mann is taking on the role of Pinocchio, and he will be joined by Ewan McGregor (Doctor Sleep) as Cricket and David Bradley (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones) as Geppetto. That’s not all, though! The rest of the cast includes Tilda Swinton (Doctor Strange), Christoph Waltz (Alita: Battle Angel), Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things), Cate Blanchett (Thor: Raganrok), John Turturro (The Batman), Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Tim Blake Nelson (Watchmen), and Burn Gorman (Enola Holmes).

The film is based on the classic Carlo Collodi tale, and the story follows the extraordinary journey of a wooden boy magically brought to life by a father’s wish. Set during the rise of Fascism in Mussolini’s Italy, del Toro’s Pinocchio is a story of love and disobedience as Pinocchio struggles to live up to his father’s expectations.

Guillermo del Toro said in a statement:

“After years of pursuing this dream project, I found my perfect partner in Netflix. We have spent a long time curating a remarkable cast and crew and have been blessed by continuous support from Netflix to quietly and carefully soldier on, barely missing a beat. We all love and practice animation with great passion and believe it to be the ideal medium to retell this classic story in a completely new way.”

The film has been in production since last autumn at ShadowMachine’s Portland, Oregon studio, and production has continued uninterrupted during the pandemic.

Del Toro and Patrick McHale wrote the script for the film. The song lyrics come from by del Toro and Katz, with music by Alexandre Desplat who will also write the score. Artist Gris Grimly created the original design for the Pinocchio character in the film and the puppets are being built by Mackinnon and Saunders (Corpse Bride).

The director previously shared that the film is not going to be a family-friendly version of the story. The filmmaker also discussed his Pinocchio film, compared it to Frankenstein, and described it as a “brutalist fable.”

“To me, Pinocchio, very much like Frankenstein, is a blank canvas in which learning the curve of what the world is and what being human is are very attractive to do as a story. I’m very attracted to it because, thematically — and I don’t want to spoil what the movie’s about — it’s about something that is in all of my movies, which is choice. That’s a theme that is very dear to my heart. I think [earlier versions of] the story, and Collodi’s in particular, are very repressive. It’s essentially a very brutalist fable about what a sin disobedience is. And I think disobedience is the beginning of the will, and the beginning of choice. … I think there’s something that’s very attractive about seeing disobedience as a virtue, or as the beginning of a virtue.”

He also described the character of Pinocchio saying, “He’s a creature that is created through unnatural means from a father that he then distances [himself] from, and has to learn about failure and pain and loneliness.”

Pinocchio is expected to be released on Netflix sometime in 2021.